Setting Max Sell Quantity / Threshold (Shadow Inventory)
Need to restrict the quantity of products purchased online? The Shadow Inventory works behind the scenes to monitor the maximum quantity available to sell. Once set up for a product, the tool will restrict how much can be sold online, AND via allocation, while allowing orders to be placed in the POS without limitation.
Permission Required: To access the Shadow Inventory settings, your user account must be enabled with two permissions:
1.) Primary access to the Product menu, and
2.) Sub-permission access for Allow Sell Limits.
Contact your eCellar User Manager for assistance.
Setting Sell Limits
To set the limits for Shadow Inventory navigate to the Product > View list and select the desired product. Then, go to the Quantity Tab of the product settings.
| Max Sell Qty | Total number of units available to sell. This includes all previous orders containing this product, in all sales channels. The max sell quantity should be the total lifetime number of bottles available for sale when the product was first released. |
| Max Sell Threshold | Is the limit of units to be saved before the product sells out. This provides a cushion to prevent overselling – if you want to ensure a few bottles are held back for special circumstances. The threshold field cannot be left blank. |
The Shadow Inventory will allow the product to be sold online until it reaches the Max Sell Qty MINUS the Max Sell Threshold. Or, in other words, MAX SELL QTY minus MAX SELL THRESHOLD = the total number of bottles allowed to sell.
Note: The shadow inventory tool accounts for orders of all billing statuses except for cancelled and void. It's important to know that unpaid orders will still deplete for the sell limits.
Additional Information
If you've already been selling the product without having sell limits entered into the product settings, and it's now a restricted product that needs shadow inventory enabled, here's how to set up:
To set the Max Sell Qty, first determine the starting quantity of a product - you have to know where you started, and how many you’ve "sold" so far including paid and not paid orders. To find this number, follow the steps below:
- Order Search >
Billing Status: Paid, Partial Paid, Credit, Refunded, Not Paid
Back office criteria: Enter specific product you’re working on > Search Orders - Create a Report > Use Results > Product Collapsed report
- Locate specific product by scrolling through the report. Make note of the total in the Quantity column. This is how many units have already been sold.
- Add the number of units sold plus the number of units remaining to find the Max Sell Qty.
- Enable the sell limits for the product.
Products View > Find specific product > Quantity tab > Set max sell qty and max sell threshold amounts > Save